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With New Deal Fervor, Clinton Pushes Education Plan

President Clinton today evoked the spirit of the New Deal in arguing for the package of educational initiatives that were the centerpiece of his State of Union address before Congress on Tuesday night.

Speaking to an enthusiastic crowd at Augusta State University, Mr. Clinton and Senator Max Cleland, a Georgia Democrat, both evoked President Franklin D. Roosevelt, saying New Deal programs like rural electrification were for his era what education is for this one.

''When Roosevelt came here and saw the plight of so many Georgians living in abject poverty, he got the inspiration to electrify rural America,'' Mr. Clinton said. ''And now, as we prepare for the new century, we have to give people another way to turn the lights on. We have to give everybody the tools to make the most of their own lives. And the most important thing we can do is to give people a good education.''

Speaking in a packed gymnasium, with a banner proclaiming ''Hope Scholarships for America'' behind him, another reading ''Peach Belt Athletic Conference'' above him, Mr. Clinton broke no new ground, instead reprising the ''call to action for American education'' that he unveiled on Tuesday.

The plan calls for an ambitious national agenda of programs to raise standards, improve the quality of the nation's teachers, improve reading ability, enhance early learning and offer more choices -- particularly largely autonomous charter schools -- within the context of public education.

Mr. Clinton, who boasted that his speech on Tuesday spent more time on education than any State of the Union address before him, also called for more character education within schools and proposed $5 billion to repair and rebuild crumbling school buildings. He said he wanted to increase financial aid to college students, improve adult education and, by the year 2000, hook all schools to the Internet.

In all, his budget calls for spending $51 billion on education next year, by far the largest amount in American history.

At a panel discussion before his talk -- and then during the talk, to about 4,500 people here -- Mr. Clinton acknowledged the delicate tightrope he was walking in advancing his educational proposals, trying to assert Federal leadership and advocating national standards in an area that has long been fiercely local.

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Mr. Clinton said at the panel discussion that achieving national excellence called for maintaining ''the right blend of local control of our schools, state leadership but adherence to high national standards.''

In his speech, he said: ''We must start with the elemental principle that there should be national standards of excellence in education -- not Federal Government standards, not something that takes away local control, not something that undermines the state's role in leading the way in education. But algebra is the same in Georgia as it is in Utah.''

Mr. Clinton cited Georgia's Hope Scholarship program, which went into effect in the fall of 1993, as the inspiration for his own Hope Scholarship program, but the details of the two have little in common.

Georgia's plan is financed by a state lottery, which has generated more than $1.5 billion for education projects and pays for full tuition, fees and books at state colleges and universities for all high school graduates with a B average. Mr. Clinton's proposal offers a maximum $1,500 tax credit for each of two years, with the goal of making at least two years of college as common as a high school education is now.

Mr. Clinton hopes that in a political climate where bipartisanship is the order of the day, education is a centrist issue able to draw support across the political spectrum. And while many education issues are hotly debated among policy analysts, people here of varying political outlooks seemed receptive to his calls for making education more efficient and more affordable.

Steve Frelke, a father of three public school students who described himself as a political independent, said he was impressed by the President's remarks. ''I think the most important thing he can do is provide leadership,'' he said.

Elaine M. Rondeau, a real estate agent in Atlanta, said the President's speech had special resonance for her. Her daughter, Renee, 29, a former student at Augusta State, was murdered two years ago. Two young people with no educational prospects have been charged with the crime. ''We did our job,'' she said, ''but unless we educate everyone it's not going to do any good. We won't get to the root cause of crime unless we improve education for everyone.''